JAY PARIS COMMENTARY: New papa Hamels is Phillies' big daddy

LOS ANGELES ---- Cole Hamels went from a speeding,
black-and-white cop car to putting the Dodgers in handcuffs.

All in a week.

Hamels returned to the mound in Thursday night's National League
Championship Series opener, delivering another Philadelphia
Phillies' postseason win, 8-6.

We will leave the delivering of babies, thank you, to his wife,
Heidi.

It was on Oct. 8 that Hamels was riding on his left wing and a
prayer that he wouldn't miss the birth of his son.

His golden arm was a bit tarnished after the Colorado Rockies
popped him for four runs in five innings en route to a 5-4 victory
in the division series. Once removed from the game, Hamels got word
that his wife had gone into labor.

Hamels hailed one of those cabs with lights on top and a siren.
He rode shotgun as a Philadelphia policeman raced toward Lankenau
Hospital.

"Best cop ride I had ever been a part of when I wasn't in the
back," Hamels said.

What was soon front and center was Caleb Michael Hamels. Both
Caleb and Heidi are resting fine.

The Dodgers? Not so much.

Some day, Hamels will explain to Caleb how he once again turned
Chavez Ravine into a Dodgers ditch.

Hamels is a San Diego native and Rancho Bernardo High graduate,
but he's right at home in this slice of blue heaven.

Last October, Hamels beat the Dodgers twice in becoming the NLCS
MVP and leading the Phillies to the World Series. And though Hamels
had to skip and hop around some occasional trouble Thursday, his
fastball and tantalizing changeup were enough to arrest the
Dodgers' bats ---- to a degree.

"We won, and that is all that matters,'' Hamels said. "It's the
first game and playing in Dodger Stadium, you want to take the
crowd out of it to come away with a victory. They are a tough
team.''

After allowing a moon-shot home run to James Loney in the second
inning, Hamels settled in and retired 10 of the next 11 batters. In
a groove and leading 5-1, he appeared to be sailing toward a
complete game, something he collected here in a June shutout.

But these battling Dodgers did just that after the Phillies had
scored five runs in the fifth.

"I felt like that was a long inning for him,'' manager Charlie
Manuel said of Hamels. "I think he stiffened up.''

Russell Martin opened the fifth with a double and though Rafael
Furcal followed an out with a single, there was little worry when
Andre Ethier rolled a double-play grounder toward Jimmy Rollins.
Rollins, though, double-clutched on his feed to Chase Utley, and
Utley's errant relay was quickly devoured by the Phillies'
dugout.

That brought a look from Hamels, as if he got a whiff of his
first dirty diaper.

"It's tough because you are battling and you make the right
pitch to Ethier and I got exactly what I wanted,'' Hamels said. "It
just didn't happen and it takes a lot out of you.